A snippet from McLaughlin's controversial past

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
02/19/2013 10:25:10 AM EST

The following is an excerpt from an Associated Press article, dated Oct. 25, 1987:

...However, Lowell's symbolic value (to then-Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Michael Dukakis, who in 1987 was touting Lowell as a symbol of his home state's "economic miracle'") has been tarnished by reports that Michael McLaughlin, the Housing Authority director and a Middlesex County commissioner, enlisted the help of a convicted bookmaker with ties to a Boston-area organized crime group in an effort to win election to the city manager post.

In police tapes of conversations between McLaughlin and the bookie, John "Jackie" McDermott, the two discuss McLaughlin's candidacy for city manager in January and his support among city councilors, who ultimately selected another man for the $61,000-a-year job, The Boston Herald reported over the weekend.

In one of the calls, according to transcripts quoted in the newspaper, McLaughlin and McDermott discussed the potential support of City Councilor Gus Coutu, who was allegedly "over his head" with a five-figure gambling debt to McDermott's alleged crime group, the Winter Hill gang, the Herald reported.

"'You could call Gus at home," McLaughlin suggested in a call to McDermott's home in late December 1986.

"Yeah, well Gus bets pretty good with me," McDermott responded.

"Yeah, well you should call Gus at home and just tell him I know this thing's going on and I'm close with Mike and I know you're close to Mike. And he'll say, 'Oh yeah, I'm going to be with him,'" McLaughlin said.

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